Dutch glass crasftman Ramon Vink runs a studio called Poelgeest Glass. Using modern lampworking techniques and tools, he makes scientific apparatus and artistic pieces like this Klein bottle, the forming of which he has documented in a series of five YouTube videos. The videos themselves are pretty raw, with minimal post-production and no narration, but taken altogether they do a good job of documenting not just the general process of forming a Klein bottle from stock glass tube, but the specific tools and skilled manipulations required for each operation. If you were to just watch one of them, I think part 4, in which the interior portion of the bottle’s neck is installed inside the bulb, is probably the most interesting.

Scientific glassblowing is not a skill that most people can pick up without a fair amount of practice, but if you have the basic tools on your bench and the basic skills under your belt, already, following along with Ramon’s Klein bottle videos could be a rewarding challenge.

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c’t – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.